Car chargers on full throttle
China wants to speed construction of a national network to charge electric vehicles, to help reach an ambitious goal of five million green cars on its roads by 2020.
A shortage of charging facilities has long been a roadblock for sales by electric-car makers from domestic firm BYD to US rival Tesla Motors, as well as for government plans to rein in pollution.
China has made some progress on car-charging infrastructure but it has lacked coordination.
"It's like with phone chargers, it's a bit all over the place," National Energy Administration deputy head Zheng Zhajie said. "Everyone has a pile of different chargers and a pile of batteries. We're moving toward unifying and standardizing."
China aims to equip at least one in 10 public car park facilities for electric- car charging.
Sales of green cars have almost quadrupled from the 2014 figure.
China has rolled out aggressive targets for vehicle fuel efficiency that will grow gradually stricter until 2020.
Source: REUTERS